Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1885 — THE WEST [ARTICLE]

THE WEST

Judge Josiah Mcßoberts, who was re-elected on the Ist in st. Judge of the Ninth Judicial District of Illinois, was found dead in bed at his home in Joliet. ... .About one hundred and fifty lowa editors left Chicago the other day by special train over the Baltimore and Ohio for Washington, Baltimore, Harper’s Ferry, and the Shenandoah Valley. A furious wind, rain, and hail storm swept over the Northwest on the 2d inst, doing great damage to property. The storm was attended by a brilliant electric display At Chicago a large number of houses were struck by lightning, four people were killed, and a number of others were knocked down by the electric fluid. At Canton, Dakota, a farmer was struck by lightning and killed, and another received a fatal stroke at Waseca, Minnesota. At Monmouth, IIL, several buildings were unroofed by the wind, and the stocks of traders damaged by water. The roof of the woolen factory was crushed in by the falling smoke-stack, and a barn was burned by lightning. Several citizens took refuge in their cellars during the storm, which lasted thirty minutes. At Cedar Rapids, lowij, a span of the bridge was blown away, and glass was broken throughout the city, by hailstones. - v . McVicker’s ' Theater, Chicago, newly reconstructed, will be opened to the public Monday, June 29, when a new play, by Mr. John C. Freund, of New York, will be presented. The practically new theater will undoubtedly be the handsomest, safest; and most comfortable in this country. Lighted by the Edison incandescent light, and cooled in hot weather by a new system of ventilation, and at all times presenting entertainments of the highest order, McVicker’s will retain the enviable distinction it has possessed for the past twenty’-eight years of being the foremost amusement temple of Chicago... .After a three days’ investigation, the Grand Jury of Polk County, lowa, refused to indict State Auditor Brown and his deputy, Stewart. The Secretary of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture states that of the 1,613,298 acres of winter wheat sown, 40 per cent has been plowed up, and the ground seeded to other crops, and that the product in the State will not exceed 12,000,000 bushels.... Four burglars tried to rob a safe at Sedalia, Mo., one of the thieves doing duty as sentinel outside. Policemen Fifer and McGee came along,* Mid a fight ensued, during which the burglar was shot through the. heart and Fifer seriously wounded. The other robbers escaped While standing in the door of their residence at Mendota, Mo., a father and son named McKinley were killed by lightning... .Freight agents in Chicago have offered to carry grain or provisions to New York for 12 cents per hundred pounds. ~ ... .Both houses of the Illinois Legislature have passed a bill to place colored persons on the same footing as whites. A member of a volunteer company which went, from Silver City in pursuit of the murderous Apaches in Arizona, gives a catalogue of Indian massacres and barbarities scarcely without a parallel in modern times: Scouts spent two hours in searching for the trail, which Jed to Little Walnut Creek. Along this stream the most horrible sights were witnessed. Dead bodies frightfully mutilated and naked were found at frequent intervals. AU

the houses were pillaged, and clothing and household articles were scattered every where. At William Ogden’s five dead bodies, all scalped, lay in a pool of blood. The two women had been assaulted and their breasts cut off. A five year o)d girl had both hands cut off. Following the trail over the ! hills, Gomez Kanab was reached. A number of children were gathered here who had escaped death by hiding. Their parents, living in the vicinity, had all been killed. Six miles further. in the bouse of Felix Marquez, five dead bodies were found. Mrs. Marquez and her seven-year-old daughter had both suffered at the bands of the Indians before being killed. The bodies were slashed with knives and presented a sickening spectacle. The dead were brought In in Wagons. The Americans were cared for, but the bodies of the Mexicans lay here for hours before anything was done to them. Finally “Josie" and ' “Jennie," two well-known women of the town, with the aid of a Mexican woman, washed the bodies, clothed the women with their own clothes, went about and procured clothing for the children from others and laid flowers about them. An attempt was made by three masked men to assassinate Dr. IJJnderwood and G. H. Riteneur near Eldora, Hardin County, lowa. The latter two were prominent in the prosecution of the Rainsberger brothers for a murder committed last November. Fin and Wans Rainsburger, brothers of the were arrested for the attempt on Underwood and Riteneur The next day they were taken from the Eldora Jail by a mob and riddled with bullets.... By an ingenius system of manipulation of' money orders the absconding Postmaster sit Lewiston, Oregon, Isaac Hibbs, has swindled the National Treasury out of between $20,01)0 and $50,000. It is stated that the robberies wdl necessitate a change in the money-order system... .At a farm house near Edwardsport, Ind., Fred Grot egout and his wife were found to have been killed with a razor. The circumstances indicate that Grotegout became insane and committed the deed.... Near Gudsell’s Station, Ind., John Butcher stabbed James H. Minnis to death, and after emptying all the chambers, save one, of two revolvers at pursuers, blew out his brains -with the remaining bullet... .The Ohio Live Stock Commission and the State Veterinary Surgeon went to Dayton and caused to be slaughtered a cow of the ‘Mitchell herd, whose lungs were found to be infected. Several other cows were then ordered slaughtered, and the whole herd was placed in quarantine. .. .The surplus earnings of the Union Pacific Railroad for the first four months of 1885 were $2,242,113, a comparative increase of $268,158. Advices from Saint Simon, N. M., report that a party of twenty-four cattlemen encountered a band of about twenty-five Apaches at the mouth of Doubtful Canon. In the fight which ensued two Indians were killed and a pappose was captured whose mother is supposed to have been shot.,.. At Owatonna, Minn., a terrific hail and wind storm was experienced. Hailstones as large as hens’ eggs fell, doing great damage to windows. Shade and fruit trees w r ere stripped of their leaves, and corn and small fruit damaged. ... The crop prospects in lowa are reported excellent In some parts of Illinois corn promises exceedingly well, while in others it is. doing badly. In Wisconsin and Minnesota chinch-bugs have made their appearance, and in Indiana and Arkansas the seventeenyear locusts have come in swarms.. f .Men from Ohio, Indiana,'lllinois and Kentucky attended the reunion of the First and Second Kentucky Regiments at Cincinnati.